HI sebastian
If I remember correctly you are not the only one bitten by it :) so we should
do something
Object>>copyFrom: anotherObject
"Copy to myself all instance variables I have in common with
anotherObject. This is dangerous because it ignores an object's control over
its own inst vars. "
Now you enumeration is too complex for me :)
> I ask because, if so, situation goes like this:
>
> A. we think again and decide to do the right thing or we go with the
> alternative which is
> B. we leave it as invalid, as it is right now, and
> 1. we mislead even to smalltalkers not familiarized to squeak/pharo
> 2. we rationalize some clever way to see it as a feature even if it
> will mislead everybody (even ourselves in a hurry)
> 3. we lay a foundation to lightly use protocol that is typically used
> in collections (to do dangerous things like instVar manipulation)
> 4. we break encapsulation and manipulate extremely primitive things in
> a common sounding selector.
> 5. we work harder on trying to give the impression that we're leaving
> it like that because we're smarter than the confused people that tried to use
> it (proving to them that we're dumb)
> 6. we get involved in an unnecessarily complicated way of thinking that
> will complicate unnecessarily our future (guaranteed)
> 7. we learn how to maintain a screwed attitude in front of people
> trying to use intuition when using pharo
> 8. we stay comfortable (on the wrong foundation and for the wrong
> reasons)
>
> That would leave us with this question in the table:
>
> what is compatible with the Pharo's mission? is it A or B?
My state of mind is always to make the world better :)
Now
- did you check the senders to copyFrom:?
sounds ok not so many so we could deprecated it easily
- did you check in other Smalltalk if this method is used or not?
VW not in Object but in probe something
- did you check the ansi standard?
I guess that this is not there.
The finder says:
'if this isn''t broken' . 15 . 'broken'
no single method, strange.... but indeed
'if this isn''t broken' . 15 . 20 . 'broken' find copyFrom:to:
Now what would be a better name
copyFromObject:
then
on String>>copyFrom: ?
Even if I would prefer (but it sucks) String>>copyFromIndex: but this is more
coherent with copyFrom: index to: another
Stef
